“Obviously for Manne rationality and reasonableness are qualities of the elites while the ordinary people are characterised by a "feebleness of reason" which produces the Denialism he denounces so vehemently.”

I don’t think Manne’s belief is objective. I doubt it is the “ordinary people” who are suffering from a “feebleness of reason”. I suggest it is the elites who are suffering the “feebleness of reason”.

Consider who is being irrational supporting a carbon tax which will cost at least $10 for every $1 of projected benefits. But the costs will be far more than the Treasury estimates and the benefits will not be realised because the assumptions which underpin the modelling to estimate the benefits are totally impracticable and will not be implemented. Some of the assumptions are:

• Negligible leakage (of emissions between countries)
• All emission sources are included (all countries and all emissions in each country)
• Negligible compliance cost
• Negligible fraud
• An optimal carbon price
• The whole world implements the optimal carbon price in unison
• The whole world acts in unison to increase the optimal carbon price periodically
• The whole world continues to maintain the carbon price at the optimal level for all of this century (and thereafter)

If these assumptions are not met, the benefits cannot be achieved.

Given the above, who are the people displaying "feebleness of reason" - the elites or the ordinary people?

Who are being irrational?

I disagree with Robert on Finkelstein but my assessment of his work altogether still holds.

How does the ordinary every-person come to some kind of intelligent informed understanding of the question/problem re whether climate change and global warming are real and/or caused by human activity?
Or of any possible solutions to the very real questions and problems with which humankind altogether is faced in this now instantaneously inter-connected globalized world.

In fact it is very difficult to do so.

You can be sure that the normal dreadly-sane heavily propagandized every person who stays faithfully "tuned" to the "news" as communicated by the Global Spin Machine, the right-wing noise-machine, and/or the tabloid press, which includes ALL of the Murdoch media, is singularly ill-equipped to come to a thoroughly considered conclusion about any and every thing to do with the human situation in 2012.

The state of the now normal dreadfully-sane every-person was chillingly described and prophesized by both Aldous Huxley in Brave New World (and Brave New World Revisited), and George Orwell in 1984 (1948)

In my opinion some of the best myth-busters re the dreadful death-saturated reality of the world situation in 2012 are Chris Hedges, Henry Giroux, Adbusters with its in your face dramatic graphics, and CounterPunch.

The only explanation I can find for the fervour with which the Green Left clings to the AGW hypothesis is that it somehow fills a gap left by the retreat of religion. Bereft of an imaginary Apocalypse wherein the Faithful are exalted and their enemies humbled, it becomes necessary for them to make one up. Perhaps it also has something to do with the collapse of Communism and the subsequent exposure of Leftist thinking as unviable and ultimately destructive: only by jumping aboard the AGW bandwagon, they believe, can they try and regain credibility.

Alas, they are as ill-advised as ever.

Never mind that some/many key participants in the global environment and global climate change movement are committed Christians, Hindus and Buddhists too.
For example Bill McKibben,Vandava Shiva,Joanna Macy, and the various people and organizations which link into this site:

http://theblueok.com

cohenite,

Just on the other aspect of your article - in that ordinary people "....can see that the science of AGW is not settled and arguably disproven or non-existent...."

"Ordinary people" did quite well in accepting and being educated on Germ Theory. In this situation, they relied on scientists to tell them the truth.
http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/contagion/germtheory.html

"Germ theory required a new public awareness, not only of germs as the causes of diseases, but also of the ways in which germs were spread from one person to another. The public was also taught about germs as they related to home hygiene...."

http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/contagion/domesticmedicine.html

"The boundary between the care of physicians and that of family, midwives and surgeons was blurred....The modern professionalization of scientific medicine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is primarily associated with two factors: the rise of exclusive, laboratory based medical knowledge that was unavoidable to the general public, and the move to office based medical practice...."

The understanding "germ theory" and its acceptance led to improved sanitation and nutrition, which are both prominent aspects of the decline in mortality in modern times.

How is climate science different from medical science?

Re: my last post...

Should read - "...laboratory based medical knowledge that was 'unavailable' to the general public...."